Daily Archives: June 1, 2011

Paul Albert Anka was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on July 30, 1941. He will be 70 on his birthday which is hard to believe. It seems like only yesterday I was listening to him sing Diana, You Are My Destiny, Put Your Head on My Shoulder and Lonely Boy. Lonely Boy would be his last No.1 hit until he hit No.1 again in 1974 with You’re Having My Baby and his last No.1 in 1975 with Times of Your Life.

Paul Anka singing a medley of his hits including the title song for The Longest Day.

Paul Anka singing his classic composition My Way.

His best known song My Way a song he wrote for Frank Sinatra. He wrote English words for the song, which is one of the most sung songs today.

He was married to Anne Zogheb from 1963 to 2000 and one of his daughters from that marriage, Amanda, is married to actor Jason Bateman. He later married Swedish model Anna Yeager who thirty years younger than Anka, but the marriage only lasted from 2008 to 2010.

The Voice has been featuring battles between singers the last four weeks, but the “battle” between Emily Valentine and Curtis Grimes ended in a passionate kiss. They were singing Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now and Emily mentioned before they entered the boxing ring that she had a crush on Curtis, so the kiss wasn’t a total surprise.

However, the coaches were caught by surprise, particularly Adam Levine and Cee Lo Green. Green eventually chose Curtis to be his fourth and final singer on his team.

The following article tells more about the show and contains the video of Emily and Curtis singing Need You Now and includes their passionate kiss at the end.

Like this:

Johnny Ace 25, died on Christmas, 1954 when he shot himself during a break between sets in Houston, Texas.

Johnny Ace an up and coming rhythm and blues singer had it all going his way until he shot himself on Christmas of 1954. For some reason Russian roulette is identified ,as the cause of his death. However two eyewitnesses tell a different story.

Big Mama Thornton’s bass player Curtis Tillman, who was in the room at the time said this in Wikipedia about his death:

It was widely reported that Ace killed himself playing Russian roulette.[4][5]Big Mama Thornton‘s bass player Curtis Tillman, however, who witnessed the event, said, “I will tell you exactly what happened! Johnny Ace had been drinking and he had this little pistol he was waving around the table and someone said ‘Be careful with that thing…’ and he said ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded…see?’ and pointed it at himself with a smile on his face and ‘Bang!’ – sad, sad thing. Big Mama ran outta that dressing room yelling ‘Johnny Ace just killed himself!”[6]

However Big Mama Thornton, who also witnessed the shooting tells a slightly different story:

Thornton said in a written statement (included in the book The Late Great Johnny Ace) that Ace had been playing with the gun, but not playing Russian roulette. According to Thornton, Ace pointed the gun at his girlfriend and another woman who were sitting nearby, but did not fire. He then pointed the gun toward himself. The gun went off, shooting him in the side of the head.

There has been speculation that Ace was murdered, but after reading the two eyewitness accounts of Tillman and Thornton, that seems impossible since neither mentions anyone else having a gun.

What we do know for sure is that Johnny Ace was born June 29, 1929 in Memphis, Tennessee and that he was born John Marshall Alexander, Jr. He later changed his name to Johnny Ace and appeared to be on his way to a successful recording career, when fate intervened and ended his life before his career could take off.

Bill Klein and Jen Arnold returned last night for another season of the Little Couple on the TLC television network.

It seems like it had been forever since the last new episode of the Little Couple had aired, before the first episode of Season 4 was shown last night on the TLC network.

Matter of fact, two new episodes were shown last night. One episode dealt with the struggles the couple Bill Klein and Jen Arnold have experienced trying to give birth to a child.

The Houston couple has been trying to give birth to a child through a surrogate mother, but the doctor last night couldn’t retrieve a fertile egg in time, before it was ovulated. One problem they have is that their doctor practices in Los Angeles while they live in Houston.

When the doctor told them the egg had already been ovulated, the sadness in their faces was overwhelming and Jen shed some tears after being told the news. But Bill and Jen don’t give up easily and will try again.

Their resiliency was amazing since while being greatly disappointed, they still were able to regroup and not give up on their hope for a baby. If all else fails, they will adopt a baby, but they haven’t reached that point yet.

The second episode last night was more on a happy note with the couple checking out the progress on their new house under construction. There is still a lot of work left to be done before it will be finished, but it looks much better than it did at the end of Season 3.

Another reason for happiness is that Bill was able to buy a new sports car without busting their budget or as Bill put it “It will cost only a sandwich a month more than their previous car.”

The most admirable trait of the couple is that they never let their handicap of being little in a big people’s world, deter them from achieving their goals and dreams.

Unlike most reality shows these days, there is not a lot of dissension on this program. They may have some petty disagreements, but their love is bigger than any disagreements, so they work out any problems together as a team.

I am sure that they are being paid well for allowing TLC to film their daily lives, but it doesn’t matter to me since I enjoy the shows immensely, knowing these are two of the nicest people who have overcome their height obstacle to reach all the goals they have set for their lives.

It is now official: Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina have both signed with the Mercury Nashville record label. The recording company’s ad announcing the signings is included in the link at the end of this article.

With the Lauren Alaina signing, it should signal that she will be recording almost exclusively country music. To me, her voice is better suited for country music. However, time will tell if she will crossover into pop music from time to time.

One thing that can be said for American Idol is that it is great training for new artists, since they have to keep an exhausting schedule during the season.

It is a shame that Scotty and Lauren Alaina can’t hit the road now with their own tour, instead of being tied down to the American Idol tour most of the summer. When they do tour, it wouldn’t surprise me to see them both appearing together in concerts as a package deal.

I want to be one of the first to wish them successful recording careers and that they will be singing country music for many years to come.

American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe and Season 9 winner Lee DeWyze continue to conduct their “tweeting” war, over when DeWyze was told he would be presenting the American Idol trophy to the Season 10 winner.

Lythgoe contends it was a week before the finale night, while DeWyze said he wasn’t told till the last few moments of the show. I tend to believe Lythgoe since it is a more believable scenario that DeWyze was told a week before. It is unlike American Idol to have asked DeWyze the last-minute to present the trophy. I am not saying it didn’t happen that way, just not the way the well orchestrated finale would likely to have been handled by the producers. If DeWyze was lying as Lythgoe charged, it will only hurt his career. I realize he was upset at not being asked to sing on the finale, but it still doesn’t excuse his behavior if he had agreed a week before to present the trophy, then back out the last-minute.

James Durbin has tweeted that he is close to signing a record deal….Haley Reinhart has told Digitalspy.com that she was very comfortable singing with Tony Bennett, because of his demeanor and that she felt at home singing with the jazz quartet backing them….Casey James a contestant on Season 9 opened for Sugarland earlier this year and has been signed by Sony Records and is in the process of putting a band together.

Aaron Kelly also from Season 9 is working on an album and will be opening this summer for Rodney Akins and Little Big Town….Another Season 9 contestant Siobhan Magnus will be singing in concerts this summer singing songs from her alternative-grunge debut album.

The following USA Today article gives more updates on all 12 of the Season 9 contestants:

Blog Stats

I want to thank the readers of Nostalgia Now for reaching the 1,000,000 hits mark. The blog started in April of 2009 and was not active, when internet was out for long periods of time plus was out for several months, when I had cancer surgery and chemotherapy in late 2012 and early 2013. Thank […]

Eric Glisson released after 17 years in prison for crime he didn’t commit. We all have heard prisoners say they didn’t do the crime, that they are imprisoned for, but in the case of Eric Glisson he was telling the truth. It took 17 years before his innocence was proved, but he is a free […]

Jim Ed Brown 1934-2015 Jim Ed Brown has died from lung cancer at the age of 81 in Franklin, Tennessee on June 11, 2015. He was born James Edward Brown in Sparkman, Arkansas on April 1, 1934. The Browns and Elvis Presley Brown and his sisters Maxine and Bonnie formed the group The Browns and […]

I was watching Frankie Valli being interviewed on The Big Interview by Dan Rather, and was saddened to know, that he had lost two children in a short time period. He lost his daughter Celia, when she fell off a fire escape, then six months later his daughter Francine died from a drug overdose. Their […]

American Idol Season 14 Judges – Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. If there was ever any doubt, about which singing competition show is more popular it has been removed. The Voice Season 8 has attracted less than 10 million viewers only 4 times this season, while American Idol attracted less […]

Ozzie Nelson, David Nelson, Harriet Hilliard and Ricky Nelson The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was first broadcast on radio in 1944 and could be heard on radio, until 1954 when the radio show ended on June 18. 1954. Only 83 of the shows can be bought today for listening to, out of the hundreds […]

Hillary Clinton with the late Vince Foster 22 years have passed since Vince Foster allegedly ended his life, by shooting himself in the head on July 20, 1993. Foster was said to have been depressed, at the time of his suicide, but don’t know whether to take those reports at face value. There have been […]

Dr. Bascom Ray Lakin was born January 5, 1901 in Fort Gay, West Virginia. He was one of the last of the old-time evangelists, that didn’t tell us what we wanted to hear, but told us what God wanted us to hear. He was known as a “country preacher”, but he preached at the […]

Kenny Rogers and First Edition singing Don’t Take Your Love to Town in 1972 Kenny Rogers was being interviewed by Dan Rather on The Big Interview, and it gave me a chance to learn more about Kenny Rogers. He told Rather about growing up in Houston in the projects, and that his mother only had […]

Ryan Seacrest, Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. return for American Idol Season 14 American Idol Season 14 has been on speed the last two nights, with the males singing on Wednesday night and the females on Thursday night. Fox network has reduced the show to an hour this season, and gone were […]